The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-07-25


etrating into the city. Tho course of tH,Se
ancient foundations was from the north and
! northwest, and the great cut Of NochistOngo
was made to carry off the surplus OF
| Lake ZumpangO, which did the damage to
dixie and city. Although the lakes IT
Xochimico and Chalco offer few dangers
for the city, vet, should the SHOWS of Popo-
! catapctl be melted suddenly by heat, these
lakes would SO fill up as to flow over into
the city TexcocO. though lower than the
city, is gradually filling up with solid sew
age matter and mud and as the level of tho
lake is thus rising, the danger to tho city
! becomes every year greater.
1t is very interesting to note the earliest
operations to prevent the city getting too
much water. The Aztec engineers started
ont by building dikeS, as before shown, and
! great reliance was placed on these
HUGE CONSTRUCTIONS,
miles in length, and broad enough to enable
an army to march thereop, hontezqaa l.
ordered the construction OF thessslpp0ItaRt
| hydraulic works. LateE> oA during che
reign of King Ahuizotl there game q crest
Fcttae fSe r n.oa S e ad m that Se
d Taf S0 as havs w VIZ to remedy the
which then surroundtf the tity, and to this
! end built the supply ocafeduct already
| noted While he was going on with this
work a citizen of some note at the capital
a man rejoicing In the odd name OF Tzot
matzin, predicted publicly that the conse
qence Of the Kings work would lie the
| flooding of the city. But Ahuizotl had got
very well developed case of "btg head"
and in his anger lie ordered the unfortunate
| critic, who, perhaps, ran newspaper,
to be publicly killed as a warning
to other captious people. 50 the
work of building the supply aqueduct went
| on, and when 1t was formally opened, the
| water came pouring into the lake, to the
great joy of the merchants who traded with
the translake city of Texcoco But Ahuizotl
was soon made ridiculous enough, and the
prediction of the sage Tzotmatzin was
amply carried out One day the heavy
rains brought, via the supply aqueduct, a
great influx of water into Lake Texcoco
and the City of Mexico was flooded to such
an extent that the hapless King Ahuizotl
waking up in the night, found his bedroom
a1oat, and had to swim for his life, and, in
trying to find egress through an open door,
was
swIRLED ABOUT BY THE RAPID CURRENT
and cut his head. l imagine that at that
| moment the overcOnfident king did not
think so much of his engineering qualifica-
tions.
After the conquest the dixie system was
kept up, but, notwithstanding the enormous
amount of work, put out on this sort of
work, the city kept on getting flooded. At
last the Spanialds found that they would
have to abandon the Aztec engineering
scheme aud try something beside bikes
The city had, by that time, become quite
different place than it was under the Mon
tezumas 1t had very few canals, and
the people lived i'll houses built directly
ON the ground, and thus floods in
the city were vastly move damaging
than formerly. In 1907 the Spanish Vice
| roy, the Marquis de Salinas, engaged the
services of a celebrated engineer named
Martinez, to undertake the drainage of the
valley and the reduction of the volume of
water in the lakes Over half n century
before cut through the NQchistongo hills
had been suggested, and Martinez took the
idea up anew. On Nov. IS, 1907 in the
presence of high civil and ecclesiastical
functionaries, be began, with 1900 Indians,
the work of constructing a tunnel through
the hills so as to give outlet to the waters
A year later he formally opened the tunnel,
which was built of timbers supporting
wooden cross beams to keep the walls of
the tunnel from caving in. The tunnel
was about
10000 FEET IN LENGTH.
Some time after it was found that the tun-
mel needed masonry to keep the earth from
tumbling in and filling it up, and archwork
was put III at vast expense But this work
was done so unscientiiCaliy, the modern
system of lining tunnels being unknown,
that it led to a general caving-in of the work
In 1914 a Dutch civil engineer, one Adrian
Boot, came over from Spain, aud, after
studying the situation, recommended pro
tecting the city by bikes and mounds
His suggestions, however, bore no
fruit. In 1929 Martinez perpetrated a
bit of folly, only comparable to that of the
conceited King Ahuizotl. mcensed at the
many criticisms leyeled against his tunnel,
he had it stopped mp in order to give the
people of the capital demonstration of the
needfulneSs of his work. The next morning
a great part of the city was flooded, and so
steadily rose the waters that it became
tremendous inundation, and for four years
was Mexico flooded, causing, as was said at
the first of this letter, vast amount Of
damage. Canoes again became the regula.
ton sort of thing and bridges were built at
places of convenience to the people.
The viceregal government went to study
ing the drainage problem all over again
They even tried bringing into the city the
sacred image of ''Our Lady of Guadaloupe,"
but her presence did not have any apparent
effect, aud it was not till some earthquakes
came along in 1854 that the ground opened
and the waters disappeared. The damage
|
| 1900, 900 livres,
OVER 100000
Finally, Corral, who was then Niceroy.
ordered the release of Martinez from prison,
/ and told him to go to work and perfect some
| plan for permanently relieving the city of
dangers of floods. A duty was put on wine
consumed at the capital TO meet the bills
| MARTINEZ pottered around for three years,
| accomplishing little, and his work was, in
| 1881, put into the hands Of Franciscan
| monk, FIR. Louis Flores, who decided to
! abandon the idea of tunnel at Nochistongo,
and convert the work into an open cut.
Somehow, the monks muddled the matter,
and the history of the drainage prof
| ects for the next century is welri-
| some beyond endurance There were
! all sorts of plans adopted pushed for
| a time and then abandoned; whenever the
lakes got very fun panic would cnsue and
there would be more digging at the great
| cut and renewed projects of dixie conStruc-
| ton. At last. in 1889, lS2 Years after Mar
| tinez began work on it, the cut of Nochis-
tongo was opened substantially as it stands
| to-day. This cut Of Nochistongo is familiar
| 20 thousands Of Americans who have passed
! through it on the Central railway, which
! winds along IA shelf Of earth at dizzy height
| above the trench in which the wafer runs
| far below. II is really a great engineering
! work, and if De LcssepS' descendants get
through with the Panama canal in the same
| proportionate time, the opening ceremonies
| will occur some five centuries hence THE
| largest naval vessels could be foated in this
ont NVntn IL f1laI with NUotnr II